Let`s Give Oscars For The Year`s Best Acting In Real Life

February 16, 1987|By Joan Beck.

Do Oscar nominations really honor the best acting every year? In the narrow category of performances on film, probably. But Hollywood shows its professional parochialism by refusing to recognize skilled acting outside of the movies, much of it done ad lib, without skilled direction and in circumstances that would challenge even a Paul Newman or a Sigourney Weaver.

Had the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences been willing to salute great acting talent wherever it was found, Oscar nominees might have included these:

For best actor:

Oral Roberts, for convincing thousands of good folks that God is holding him hostage and will kill him next month if he can`t raise enough ransom from TV listeners, in ``Oh God, Not You Too.``

Ferdinand Marcos, for making a poker-faced exercise tape to convince Filipino supporters he is in good fighting trim, while telling American authorities he is too ill to travel to Virginia to testify before a grand jury, in ``Exercises for Exiles.``

Ronald Reagan, for awshucks-ing and shrugging sincerely while dodging knowledge and responsibility for the Iran mess in ``Cake, Key and Bible.``

Oliver North, for the memorable conflict of emotions that played across his face when he refused to answer questions of congressional investigators, in ``Cake, Key and Bible, Part II.``

Mikhail Gorbachev, for his inscrutable portrayal of a new-style communist leader caught between old ideologies and new needs to update a floundering economy, in ``Summit.``

Reagan should win. No one has questioned his acting ability since he went into policies.

For best actress:

Corazon Aquino, for the strong, quiet, political and personal style that energized the Philippine people to oust the Marcos regime and helps her govern a troubled country, in ``Widow.``

Winnie Mandala, for being an effective spokesperson for blacks in South Africa and for her imprisoned husband despite enormous risks, in ``Little Country of Horrors.``

Jane Byrne, for running for mayor of Chicago and acting as if people can`t remember what she did and said when she held that office four years ago, in ``From the Lip.``

Imelda Marcos, for her role as the shoe-stashing, clothes-buying, art-hiding, jewelry-hoarding, money-grabbing wife of the ousted, multi-

billionaire Philippine president, in ``Her Outrageous Fortune.``

Mary Beth Whitehead, for tearfully asserting her right to break a surrogate-mother contract and keep the baby she has borne for another couple, in ``Changes of the Heart.``

The winner? Aquino, the sentimental favorite.

For best actor in a supporting role:

George Bush, for ever-so-discreetly edging away from the politically damaging perception he was involved in the Iran fiasco without looking disloyal to the President, in ``Don`t Stand by Me.``

Pat Robertson, for his skill in skirting federal broadcasting and political fund-raising regulations in making it clear to followers he wants financial support to run for president, without making it at all clear what he expects God to do in his campaign, in ``A Hernia Has Been Healed.``

Kurt Waldheim, for posing successfully as an upright statesman while concealing a World War II past during which he is charged with ordering, or at least tolerating, Nazi atrocities, in ``Critical Secret.``

Ross Perot, for being such an irritant on the General Motors board that it bought him off with mega-millions, in ``The Golden Man.``

Waldheim`s long-sustained act should make him an unpopular winner.

For best actress in a supporting role:

Sarah Ferguson, for bringing a robust new style to royal-princessing, in

``Prince Andrew Got married.``

Helga Testorf, the subject of 238 drawings and paintings by Andrew Wyeth, for managing to keep a Garbo-style privacy in her personal life when Wyeth`s secret work was made public, in ``My Favorite Model.``

Bess Myerson, suspended from her job as New York City`s cultural affairs commissioner, for refusing to testify before a grand jury probing tax charges against her much-younger boyfriend, in ``Cultural Affairs of the Heart.``

Nancy Reagan for learning how to mute her earlier rich-and-famous image by campaigning against drug abuse, in ``Stand by Your Man.``